


making me feel this way

by sequestering



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Kid Fic, M/M, Not Hockey Players (Hockey RPF), Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28694814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequestering/pseuds/sequestering
Summary: "Big man yelling at eight year olds," the man says through a thick French accent. "Bit pathetic."Sid flushes, fury mingled with embarrassment. Fine, he's being a dick, but fuck this guy for pointing it out.(claude and sid get into a fight at a mite game. it can only get better from there.)
Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Claude Giroux
Comments: 40
Kudos: 239





	making me feel this way

**Author's Note:**

> minor and potentially spoilery cws in the end notes.

The goal horn blares, and Sid curses quietly. Or maybe not that quietly if the glaring hockey mom next to him is anything to go by.

Whatever. The Wings are 5-1 down. He can't much bring himself to care about his language.

On the ice, Taylor's struggling back to her skates, her little plaits sticking out from under her helmet. She's too far away for Sid to make out clearly, but he doesn't need to see her face to know she's probably crying.

It's fucking infuriating. Taylor's probably the best goalie in her division. She's definitely the only reason that the Cole Harbour Wings are clinging to aa status. She works so hard and takes each game so seriously, and her useless team leave her to get pummelled in a firing range every weekend.

Sid bites back some more profanity as Bedford wins the puck drop, darting straight back over the blueline and into Taylor's end.

Fuck, it's going to be a long game.

With less than a minute left, the puck slams home centimetres above Taylor's outstretched blocker. That's 9-1.

The winger who scored whoops loudly and pulls to a halt directly in front of Taylor, showering her in snow. Her defense don't move. It's clearly the final straw. Taylor's long given up waiting for her team to do anything. She shoves the kid out of the crease, he shoves her back, and the whole thing devolves into a scuffle of small bodies.

Sid slams his hand against the shoddy plastic divider and swears viciously.

There's a snicker from his left.

Sid really should ignore it. He's an adult, and this is a mite game. He should take a deep breath, walk out to the parking lot, and stand in the freezing air until he's calmed down enough to see straight.

"Something you wanna say?" he snaps, turning towards the sound.

The man is a well-built red head, leaning lazily back in his seat with legs spread wide and arms resting on the headrests. What a fucking obnoxious way of sitting. He looks at Sid, visibly unimpressed.

"Big man yelling at eight year olds," the man says through a thick French accent, disdain dripping from every syllable. "Bit pathetic, no?"

Sid flushes, fury mingled with embarrassment. Fine, he's being a dick, but fuck this guy for pointing it out. "Pathetic, eh?"

The man doesn't rise to it, just raises an eyebrow. Smug prick is a good look on him, which only makes him more annoying.

Sid glares at the man for a few more seconds then grits his teeth and turns back to the hockey where the kids are being herded back into their positions for the final seconds. Fucking dickhead.

After the game, Taylor exits the locker room at record speed, and, yeah, she's definitely been crying. Her eyes are stained a tell-tale red, and she's wiping at her nose with the sleeve of her hoodie. Sid's heart clenches. He wants to punch something.

Taylor adores hockey, leaves every practice, bright and bubbly and grinning all over her face. She's not supposed to look like this, with her little mouth screwed up unhappily and her normally wild plaits looking all wilted.

She makes a beeline toward him, leg guards tucked under her arm and lugging her massive kit bag behind her.

Sid forces a grin and pulls her into a hug. "You were amazing, Tay," he says, and that much is true. "That glove save in the third? You looked like Matt Murray!"

Taylor brightens. "I didn't think I'd get that one," she says, sniffling and rubbing at her eyes. "It was going so fast, and I thought he was gonna go five hole, but then he changed." Then her smile fades. "Still lost, though."

Sid musses up her hair. "Well," he says. "I got to watch the best goalie in Halifax make over thirty saves so didn't feel much like a loss to me."

Taylor frowns and pulls away. That was clearly the wrong thing to say. "But I let in so many. My stats are gonna be garbage now."

There aren't actually any stats in mite hockey, not ones that anyone cares about, but Taylor's insistent that they keep track of her save percentage. Their mom said it was a bad idea, but Sid had succumbed to Taylor's big, pleading eyes. He's beginning to think their mom may have been right on this one.

"And," Taylor continues, voice beginning to wobble now, "they were really mean. That winger kept snowing me and making pigeon noises, and he said we were losing because girls are bad at hockey."

Sid grits his teeth and carefully keeps his voice steady. "That just means you're playing well," he says firmly. "If they're going for you, it's because you're doing your job."

It's what his parents used to tell him, and it sounds just as hollow now as it did then.

"But I wasn't playing well," Taylor sniffs, hiccoughing and rubbing roughly at her eyes. "We were losing."

Sid gives her a comforting squeeze with one arm and grabs her kit bag with the other. Giving good pep talks is hard when he's fuming. Honestly, who the fuck is raising these brats. Chirping is one thing. Chirping when you're six goals up is something else entirely.

They make their way towards the door, pushing through a small gaggle of parents clustered in the lobby. Fortunately, there's no one Sid recognises so he's free to give some friendly nods and keep moving, no need for polite chit-chat. Taylor doesn't seem any more keen to interact, waving goodbye to a few teammates but sticking close to Sid's side.

They're almost out when a large gear bag swings hard into Sid's waist. It's not painful - clearly an accident, one of the many hazards of hanging around a chaotic rink. He looks round automatically, and, of fucking course, it's the redhead from earlier.

The man's turning around, his mouth is open like he's going to apologise, until he sees it's Sid, and his lip curls into something more like a sneer. "Oh," he says, "you."

The kid by his side is the little winger, Giroux says his hoodie, who was hassling Taylor. The moment he sees her, he sticks his tongue out.

And Sid's had it with this guy and his bully of a son.

"Yeah, me," Sid says, all the suppressed anger bubbling back to the surface so suddenly that he barely manages to keep his voice from shaking. "I can see where your son gets his fucking manners from. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

The smirk drops from the man's face. "Hey," he says, dropping his son's bag and stepping forward aggressively. "You watch your fucking mouth."

And Sid's been itching to throw a punch since the first little shit jammed the puck in through Taylor's pads. He moves forward to meet the man, not giving an inch, then reaches out and shoves him hard backwards. "Fuck you," Sid spits. It's not his best chirp, but it gets the job done.

The man's face contorts. He shoves Sid back, stronger than he'd expected, but Sid played hockey for twenty years; he knows how this goes. He grabs for the man's collar and slams a fist into his stomach, takes a punch to the head, and it's all downhill from there.

They're pulled roughly apart by the Bedford coach and a pair of amused looking mothers.

"This is a fucking kid's game," yells the coach, as he forces Sid back against the bike shed. "Get the hell outta here if you wanna fight."

The ginger pulls himself out of the coach's hold, spits something in French and pulls his coat aggressively back into place. He's got a red mark on one cheekbone, but otherwise looks fine, which is really fucking annoying.

Sid's lip is definitely bleeding, his left shoulder is aching and his knuckles are stinging something fierce.

"In front of your kids," exclaims one of the moms, as she heads back to her car. "You should be ashamed of yourselves."

Now that the adrenaline is draining away, Sid is actually ashamed. He's never much wanted to be the kind of loser who gets into fights at sports games, let alone at a kids' game. God, and what an awful example to set for Taylor.

Not that either of the kids seem to much care. The tiny winger looks actively thrilled, bouncing up and down on his toes and cheering on his dad. Taylor looks a little shocked, a lot amused, and way less miserable than she did five minutes ago.

Sid pokes at his lip with his tongue and tries not to wince. Fuck this. "C'mon, Taylor," he mutters, grabbing her bag and striding off. "Let's go."

He fumes for a solid minute or so, Taylor trotting quietly beside him, until he catches her eye, and she breaks down into laughter.

"You got into a fight!" she giggles incredulously. "You, the world's biggest dweeb, got into a fight with TK's dad."

She's so happy that Sid can't help but crack a smile. He gives Taylor a sidelong look. "Maybe let's not tell mom about this one," he says sheepishly.

From the grin that spreads across Taylor's face, Sid suspects that's going to cost him a few ice cream trips.

Sid attends as many of Taylor's games as he can.

He knows he's not winning any prizes for brother of the year. His job at the fire station has him keeping weird hours, he can barely find the time for visits home, and he never remembers the names of Taylor's school friends. But without their dad around, he's trying to step up. He's really trying.

The fifteen years between him and Taylor made for a weird relationship. Between college and trying to kickstart a career, he missed seeing her grow up, missed her growing from a drooling toddler into a person. He loves her, but he doesn't really know her, not the way his friends seem to know their siblings.

But she likes hockey. Sid might struggle with feelings and classmates, but he can do hockey. If he promises to be at a game, he makes damn sure he's there. He cheers at every save, keep careful count of Tay's stats, and listens to her describe every second again in detail on the way home.

Sid's not going to replace their dad, can't replace him, wouldn't want to anyway, but he never wants Taylor to feel like she's not being supported. Especially not when she's this brilliant.

All that to say, Sid really doesn't want to be banned from their home rink.

The next time Cole Harbour plays Bedford, Sid is the fucking model of decorum.

When he sees Giroux stood at the glass taking pictures of his loudmouth of a son, Sid walks to the other side of the rink. He proceeds to talk very determinedly to Ms Bradstock about Cole Harbour's chances at the upcoming regional tournament right up until the whistle blows for puckdrop. Then he watches Taylor make forty saves and lose 3-0, and he doesn't swear even once.

When the parents stand around socialising after the game, Sid studiously avoids coming within a five metre radius of Giroux. When Giroux's car spends five minutes idling in the car park - just so happening to block Sid from reversing out - Sid breathes deeply and resists the urge to lean on his horn.

He gives Giroux the finger when he finally moves off, but Sid thinks he's earned that. He's not superhuman.

Giroux just smiles back, wide and smug. What a prick.

Sid manages his schedule to have twenty four hours off for the tournament weekend.

Taylor's so excited that she's practically vibrating on the way there. Maybe Sid should be trying to calm her down, but he gets it. He'd loved tournaments. He doesn't often remember the results, but he has soft sepia-tinged memories of long, cold days sprawled around the rink with his teammates, squabbling over handwarmers and stealing each other's jerseys. It was a whole glorious day of watching, playing and talking nothing but hockey.

Tournaments are a bit different as an adult. He has to remember a small mountain of snacks, warm drinks and warm clothes - that Taylor insists she doesn't need, but always ends up whining for anyway - and he's obliged to spend more time than he'd like making polite small-talk with other adults. He's surprised by how much he still enjoys them though.

A full day of watching Taylor play is just a blast.

What's more, the different age rules mean that the Cole Harbour team can ship in some players from the year above. Good players from the year above. So it's not just a day of watching Taylor play, but a day of watching her win.

Cole Harbour don't end up medalling, scraping their way into fourth place instead, but not coming close to last is enough of a novelty to have Taylor beaming despite her exhaustion.

"Did you get lots of photos?" she asks, clinging onto Sid's arm to get at his phone.

"Loads of them," Sid promises, trying to shake her off. He's been on his feet for eight hours now, and if Taylor won't take some of her own weight then he's worried he'll fall over.

"Do you think mom will like them?"

"For sure," says Sid. "A couple that could definitely go on the fridge."

That gets Taylor chattering happily about which game is most fridge-worthy, while they traipse slowly back to the emptying car park. All the team buses are long gone now; just a few tired parents and any kids who wanted just five minutes more on the ice.

"Excuse me," says a small voice from behind them.

Taylor stops talking mid-sentence.

It's the Giroux kid. He's clearly been playing, little face flushed red with his hair a wild mess. He's also alone in the parking lot, towing a hockey bag that's almost his size, obnoxious father nowhere in sight.

"Do you know where my papa is?" the boy asks, little face screwed up with poorly-disguised worry.

"Sorry, kid," Sid says. "Haven't seen him at all." He hasn't actually, which is unusual now that he thinks about it. Usually Giroux's all over these things like a particularly smug bad penny.

The boy nods seriously, swallows, and turns back to the now rapidly-emptying car park. He looks very small next to his huge bag.

Sid represses a sigh and pushes down thoughts of home and a hot drink. No matter how much of a pain the kid is, there is no way Sid's leaving him on his own like this.

He crouches down so they're at the same height, trying valiantly to look more like a sympathetic face than someone who once tried to beat up his dad. "Hey, um— TK—" Sid thinks that's his name. He can hardly call him Giroux. "Where did you last see your papa?"

The kid gives him a look like he's an idiot. "At home when he made me lucky grilled cheese," he says. "He's not here." The 'duh' goes unsaid.

"Okay," says Sid. That's not great, but at least he got the kid's name right. "So did you get the bus here with your team?"

"Yup," say TK, nodding enthusiastically. "Papa said he'd meet me here to watch me play, but he'd prolly only see the last games 'cos he's very busy."

"And where's your team now?" asks Sid.

"They left ages ago," TK says, spreading his arms wide as if to illustrate just how long he's been waiting.

"But your da— papa hasn't showed up?"

TK's face falls, and he crosses his arms. "He promised he'd be here," he insists, pouting. "Sometimes he's late or something."

"For sure," Sid agrees hastily. "The traffic round here's terrible. I bet he's on his way right now. Just to check, though. Do you— do you know his phone number?"

There's a silence while TK fiddles guiltily with his fingers. "I'm supposed to," he says sheepishly. "But I can't 'member the number after six."

Right, that makes sense. Sid can't even be that exasperated; he can barely remember his own number and certainly hasn't learnt anyone else's since he got a cellphone.

"Well," he says decisively. "Why don't you hang around with me and Tay for a bit while we see where your papa's got to. Does that sound okay?"

"Yeah!" TK says, relief clear in his voice. "Just 'til papa gets here."

Sid grins back. When he's not being a pest, TK's a pretty cute kid. "Just until your papa arrives," he agrees.

Taylor looks a bit less impressed, but she'll have to deal for half an hour or so. Sid can't imagine TK is in the mood to be starting trouble anyway.

He gets the kids playing shinny next to the car park, crosses his fingers and tells them to play nice, then starts off doing the rounds of any parents still left.

It's not a great success.

They're all very sympathetic. There are a fair few, especially mothers, who know of Giroux. There's a couple able to pass on the number of a friend who has a friend who has a kid on the Bedford Blue. There's an organiser packing up her paperwork who has a collection of numbers that apparently belong to the tournament management.

No one who's much practical help. Certainly no one who conveniently lives in Bedford.

The dark is coming on in earnest by the time Sid gives up and heads back to the car. He sighs and blows on his cold fingers, watching his breath steam up in front of his face.

Fuck, he really doesn't want to spend another hour hanging around a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. There doesn't seem to be much else to do though. Presumably the moment Giroux realises his son's not on the bus, he'll realise what's happened and hit the road. The Bedford staff will know they left TK at the tournament. It's just a matter of sitting around until then.

He arrives back to the sound of happy squeals and the distinctive thump of a puck slamming against a wall. At least someone's having fun. Tay and TK have apparently called a truce on the shinny and fallen to doing increasingly elaborate trick-shots off a pile of old tyres.

"Sid, Sid! Look at this!" Taylor shouts, then spins around and takes a lacrosse-style shot off the side of the wall. TK whoops excitedly.

"Nice one, Tay," Sid laughs.

He calls their mom to let her know that they haven't been kidnapped, and they'll be back late. Then he watches the kids show off their tricks until it's too dark to see the puck and he declares the competition a draw, piling them into the car with the heating on full. After that it's eye-spy that devolves into hockey talk. The Girouxs are apparently Philly fans, while Sid and Taylor are die-hard Pens supporters, but they find common ground on the Habs.

"Carey Price!" shrieks TK, way too loud for a small car.

Sid winces. "Remember our indoor voices, buddy."

"We saw him play once," says Taylor, launching into her favourite story with the gratifyingly new audience.

There are actually worse ways to spend an evening. Sid loves spending time with Taylor, and TK is surprisingly good company. Turns out that he talks a mile a minute off-ice as well as on-ice, but he's pretty sweet when he wants to be. He always stops and listens carefully whenever Taylor has something to say.

"You know you're not so bad as my dad said you were," says TK, after an hour settled in the backseat with the engine going and tucked into a pile of blankets.

Sid bites back a laugh. "Oh yeah?" he says. "What did your dad say?"

"That you were a filthy fucking bastard," TK recites, not looking the slightest bit abashed.

Taylor squeals with shocked laughter, and Sid can't help a smile.

"It's just cos he doesn't like it when grown-ups are mean to the kids," TK explains. "But you're not actually that mean."

"Thanks," Sid says drily. Honestly, he can't be that angry. Every time he thinks about that godawful match, he gets hit by a full body blast of mortification.

It's ten thirty and the kids are half-asleep by the time a small green car going way too fast screeches into the parking lot.

"That's papa!" shouts TK at ear-piercing decibels.

Sid winces. "Indoor voices," he repeats weakly, as the car pulls up alongside of them.

TK starts wriggling around in his seat, trying to get the car door open. "I told you papa was coming!" he says excitedly. "I told you."

And thank fuck, the figure jumping out of the green car is definitely Giroux. Sid unclicks the child lock, and starts stretching out his stiff limbs. "You sure did."

TK's out of the car before Sid's even got his door open. He stumbles slightly on the frozen ground then flies headlong into Giroux's arms. Sid shakes his head and yawns. That kid has a ridiculous amount of energy.

"You alright in here for a minute, Tay?" he asks.

She nods sleepily, and Sid clambers reluctantly out into the frigid night air. The last thing he wants to do right now is make awkward small talk with Giroux, but he can't exactly drive off without saying anything.

"I told you I listened!" TK's telling Giroux, little chest puffed up with pride. "I stayed where I was, and then you weren't there, so I found Taylor, and Sid said I should stay with them 'til you got here, so we played shinny and eye-spy and—"

Giroux's nodding along, clearly well-used to the chatter. He's checking TK over, little unnecessary touches - smoothing down his hair and straightening out his hoodie - that are clearly more about assuring himself that TK is there, safe and happy, than about neatness. "You did great, Teeks," he says, when the kid pauses for breath. "Very responsible."

Then he pulls TK back into a tight hug, burying his nose in the the mop of sweaty hair.

Sid looks away awkwardly. The scene feels strangely intimate, father and son hugging in the middle of the empty parking lot, scene lit only by the yellow light of Sid's headlights.

After a moment, Giroux squeezes TK's shoulders and pulls himself back to his feet. "Thank you," he says, turning to look Sid straight in the eye, something almost raw in his voice. "Thank you for looking after him."

Sid doesn't want to be thanked for looking after a lost child. That's, like, basic human decency. "It was nothing, rea—" he tries to say.

"No, " Giroux says seriously. "You must have been here for hours. Thank you."

"It's fine." Sid shoves his hands in his pockets. "Really. The kids had fun together."

TK nods enthusiastically and breaks into a story about a puck that almost hit a car window. Sid winces; apparently he'd missed that excitement.

TK's story is interrupted by a yawn, and Giroux seizes the opportunity. "Time for us to head home, I think," he says, ruffling up TK's hair. "You wanna thank Mr Crosby?"

"Thank you, Mr Crosby," TK repeats earnestly. "I had lots of fun."

"No worries," Sid says. "And Sid's fine."

Giroux smiles and pushes TK gently towards the car. Then it's just the two of them, standing quietly in the dark.

"Look," Giroux says. "Let me give you my number. You ever need help with pick-up or something, let me know."

"Sure," Sid says, way too tired to argue.

Giroux plugs his number into Sid's phone. "I owe you one," he says, as he hands it back. Their fingers brush, cold-clumsy, and Sid pushes his hands deep back into his pockets.

"Right," he says awkwardly. "Goodnight then."

Giroux looks at him, expression indecipherable. "You too."

Sid trudges back to the car. Taylor's snoring quietly in the back, not even stirring when Sid reaches across and connects her seatbelt. He'd quite like a nap as well; the start of the tournament was over twelve hours ago now. What a long, weird day.

Sid has no intention of ever using Giroux's number.

Out of mild curiosity, he checks to see what Giroux entered it as: Claude Giroux. How French. Then he forgets about it. They only play Bedford a few times a season so it's not like he'll be needing it.

It's just fucking classic then that the next time Taylor plays Bedford, Sid gets called out to a road traffic accident half an hour before he's due to leave. Mercifully there's no fire, but there's more than enough to keep them busy, coning off the first lane of traffic, then cutting the distraught but miraculously unharmed passenger from her car and loading her into the ambulance for a check-up.

By the time Sid surfaces from the haze of adrenaline-fueled focus, there is not a hope in hell that he's making the game. Taylor will understand. She's always so proud of his job, and she gets that sometimes it has to come first, but he hates letting her down.

If he rushes, he could probably still pick her up. That'd save her a long bus journey back, the only girl on a bus full of rowdy boys who still think girls have cooties. She's complained about that enough times.

Sid goes through the timings as he strips out of his suit: fifty minutes from the station to Bedford, fifteen for traffic, longer if he's unlucky, five to park and rush down to the rink. He checks the clock. That'd have him there about forty minutes after the game ends, maybe more. Fuck. There's no way her coach will wait that long.

Dammit. He continues unlacing his boots with one hand and pulls out his phone with the other, scrolling awkwardly through to 'G' in his contacts. There it is: Giroux. For all that he's a dickhead, he's clearly a good dad to TK. May as well give it a go. Nothing to lose. Sid sighs and hits the call icon.

He balances the phone between his shoulder and ear, tugging off his boots and listening to the dial tone beep.

"Hello?" comes a familiar French accent.

"Hi," says Sid awkwardly. "Um, it's Sid. Sid Crosby. Taylor's brother?"

There's a beat of silence. "Oh, yeah," says Giroux, clearly surprised. "Something I can help with?"

He doesn't sound unfriendly so Sid pushes ahead. "Yeah. Look, something came up, and I'm running late for the game. You said— I mean, I don't wanna—" Sid rubs at his eyes. "Are you watching the match?"

"Yeah," Giroux says, and Sid's pretty sure he's amused. "Four-two to the Blue. Taylor's playing well, though."

"Right. Thanks. Um, would you be able to take Taylor for half an hour after the game? Forty minutes max?"

There's a pause. Sid tries to pull up his jeans without dropping the phone.

"I gotta get home," says Giroux, and Sid's heart sinks. "I could take Taylor back with us, though. We're only ten minutes from the rink. You could swing by and pick her up whenever."

Sid pauses in his one-handed attempt to button his short. Is that, like, a responsible thing to do? This is probably the longest conversation he'd ever had with Giroux. He barely knows the man's name, let along his job or history or anything.

A roar of muffled noise echoes down the line, and Giroux yells something, loud and excited. That's probably TK scoring again. Happy, healthy TK whose games Giroux watches every weekend. Sid's being paranoid. God, he's so much more sympathetic to his parents' overblown worrying now.

"Sorry, you say something?" Giroux asks, over the staticky sounds of a phone being rearranged.

"That'd be great, thanks."

"Nice, I'll text you the address," says Giroux distractedly. "We'll be around all evening so just come by whenever."

Right, well, that's sorted. Sid chucks his phone back into his bag and moves fast.

Predictably, Sid manages to get caught at every traffic light between the station and Giroux's address. By the time he pulls to a stop, he's half-convinced that someone's been messing with his SatNav, and he is definitely more than an hour late.

Giroux lives in a small apartment block, nice enough and visibly decent security even if the area isn't exactly high end. Sid follows the carefully detailed directions into the building and down two corridors to number five. Light shines out from under the door, and if Sid strains his ears, he thinks he can hear voices from within. He knocks sharply.

There's a flurry of noisy movement, then the door flies open, letting a blast of light and warm air into the hall.

Giroux's standing the doorway. It's a shock seeing him in his home. Without shoes, he's a little shorter than Sid, bare feet pale on the floor. His shirt's hanging out of his slacks, and the sleeves are rolled haphazardly up to his elbows. He's smiling too, loose and open as he yells something back over his shoulder.

"Hey," he says, turning back to Sid and waving him in distractedly. "Come on in."

Sid follows Giroux in, trying not to be too obvious about looking around curiously. The apartment isn't big, but it's well-lit and clearly lived in, shoes lining the walls, coats piled high on hooks, hockey gear banished to the corner, and the unmistakable signs of a boisterous eight year old in the house. No sign of a partner.

"Thanks for this," Sid says awkwardly. "I wouldn't have asked if I'd known it would take so long."

Giroux waves him off. "You spent three hours in a car with Teeks," he says. "His grandparents can barely manage that. An hour's babysitting is a small price to pay."

Sid doesn't think it'd be polite to agree with that so he hums noncommittally.

Giroux leads them into the kitchen, where Taylor and TK are sat at a table, a small mountain of hockey cards spread out in front of them and comically serious looks on their faces.

"Hey squirt," Sid says, giving her a head pat hello. "You been behaving yourself?"

She swats distractedly at his hand. "Go away, Sidney, I'm concentrating."

Giroux snickers. "There's been some hard bargaining going on," he says. "Teeks is trading away all my favourite players."

"Simmonds is ancient, papa," whines TK, with the kind of exasperation that only an eight year old can manage.

Sid bites back a snort.

"Watch who you're calling ancient," Giroux says drily.

TK just huffs, and the kids turn back to their game.

There's a beat of silence, and Sid frantically wracks his mind for something to say. He has no idea what the protocol is for this. Should he get out of Giroux's hair as soon as possible? Is it rude to treat the guy like a daycare?

Giroux beats him to it. "You wanna drink or something?" he asks, looking as relaxed as ever.

"I could murder a coffee," Sid says gratefully.

Giroux turns to pull a pair of battered mugs out of the cupboard. "Long day?"

Sid nods and leans back against the kitchen counter. After an hour in the car it's nice to be stood up. "Shift started at six this morning."

Giroux hums, not unsympathetically. "Well, you missed a good game," he says. "Five-three to Bedford."

"I scored two!" TK chimes in proudly from the table.

"And I made twenty-three saves," adds Taylor. She looks pleased so presumably it was less of a hammering than usual.

"Wow," says Sid. "Two champions, huh. The league's lucky you're on different teams."

Tk scrunches his nose up in disgust. "I'd never play for the Wings."

"Well, I'd never play for the Blues," says Taylor loyally. "You guys cheat."

TK squawks with outrage and they begin bickering.

Sid winces. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say.

"Nicely done," Giroux says in an amused undertone, as he slides a mug across the sideboard.

That's pretty fair. Sid sighs and takes the mug. It's cute; decorated with cheerful stick figures, a big one and a small one, both in a familiar obnoxious orange and carrying what looks like hockey sticks.

"You play?" he asks, nodding his head at the image.

"Just beer league," says Giroux with a shrug. "Not much time for it these days."

Sid can't resist. "You any good?"

Giroux grins, all smug confidence. "Better than you."

Sid snorts. "I doubt it," he says taking a sip of coffee.

"Big talk from the man who needed rescuing in a straight fight."

Sid chokes on his coffee, spluttering it back into his mug. The kids look up and give him identically disdainful looks, which only makes him splutter harder. "I—," he waits until they've looked away and lowers his voice. "I didn't need rescuing," he hisses.

Giroux shrugs expansively, still smirking obnoxiously. "Not what the split lip said," he says good-naturedly.

And, wow, that's such unbelievable bullshit. Sid's halfway to furious, halfway to laughing, and with Giroux looking at him like that he's halfway to turned on. He shakes his head disbelievingly, smiling despite himself.

"I could take you any day," he says finally.

Giroux raises a sceptical eyebrow but doesn't push any further. He leans back against the counter, looking over at where Taylor's setting a ridiculous price for Philippe Myers.

Sid goes back to drinking his coffee, and this time the quiet is a warm one.

When he's done, he drives Taylor home through a heavily misted night. She gives him a detailed recap of every save he missed and a full run-down of the updated state of her trading card collection. Apparently TK traded her Jason Zucker for a very good price so Sid's been forgiven for arranging the surprise post-game trip to the Girouxs.

"TK's dad was nice then?" he asks carefully.

"Oh yeah," says Taylor, arranging her card deck with Carey Price placed carefully at the top. "He said I was the best goalie in the league."

"Well, that's only the truth," says Sid.

Taylor flushes and beams at him.

It is true. Sid tells her so all the time, but he knows it means a lot to hear it from another adult, especially one who isn't her brother. That was— that was good of Giroux.

The next time they play Bedford, it only seems natural to go over and say hi. They're friends now or at least friendly. It'd be rude to just ignore the guy, and Giroux seems pleased enough to see him.

If Sid stays sat next to Giroux to watch the game, well, that makes sense too.

The Cole Harbour parents have always been welcoming to Sid, inviting him over and being very complimentary towards Taylor's play, but they don't exactly have a lot in common. Sid's ten years younger than most of them; he doesn't run in their circles, doesn't know half the people they talk about, and doesn't have anything of use to say on the topic of childrearing.

They're nice, but not so much fun.

Giroux is a heck of a lot of fun. He's young for a father, really young actually, completely obsessive about hockey and unabashedly a dick in a way that regularly has Sid quietly raging or shaking with laughter. He's burstingly proud of TK, and he helps Sid keep count of Taylor's saves, and when he laughs something in Sid fizzes.

Yeah, he's cheering for the wrong team, but that almost adds to it, raises the stakes a bit. He's a good game companion.

Sid's almost sad when the last Bedford game of the season rolls around.

He finds Giroux leaning against the boards, watching as TK tries to score a lacrosse goal on his increasingly aggravated goalie. Giroux looks up as Sid approaches and nods a greeting. "Ready to get beat again?" he asks.

"You wish," says Sid, situating himself next to him along the boards. "I think we'll surprise you." He actually doesn't think it's going to be a thrashing. Maybe it's the optimist in him, but Cole Harbour has been looking decidedly less rubbish for a few weeks now. They actually managed to force Halifax to a tie last week.

Giroux looks politely incredulous. Well, certainly incredulous. He's doesn't say anything rude, and as far as Sid's concerned that counts as polite.

They watch in silence for a few minutes. Sid waves at Taylor until she sees him and shakes her stick at him exuberantly, almost braining a little defenceman. Oh well, it probably wouldn't make him any worse.

"Right, final game," says Giroux as the teams move towards the benches for the start. "What do you say to ten dollars on Bedford?"

Sid presses his lips together and eyes him dubiously. Giroux smirks back. Yeah, he would just love to wipe that look off Giroux's face, but the Wings are not going to win.

"Nah," he decides.

Giroux's smirk widens. "Not so confident after all, huh."

It's ridiculous how much that affects Sid. He's not a twelve year old for fuck's sake; he shouldn't be rising to this. "Fine," he says, regretting it even as he continues. "Ten on going to overtime"

That only makes Giroux smile, broad enough to crinkle at the corners of his eyes. "You're on."

The puck drops, and Sid turns back to the game, blithely ignoring whatever's going on in his chest.

Sid wasn't wrong; Cole Harbour really have come a long way. It's a tight game, coming down to a nail-biting 4-3 Bedford lead.

Three minutes. Two minutes. One minute left and they pull Taylor for the extra skater. That always lets Sid breathe a little easier. Whatever happens next, it's not on her.

"C'mon, Wings!" yells Sid, as the Cole Harbour centre manages a clumsy deke around a defenseman. "You got this!"

Next to him, Giroux's white-knuckling the boards, muttering something under his breath.

The centre fires a shot at the goal. It bounces off the goalie's pads with a loud thump, and goes into the corner where the little players converge in a desperate mass of hacking sticks. It would be comical if Sid weren't stupidly worked up about this. A small figure breaks out with the puck, heading towards the empty net.

"Yes, Teeks!" shouts Giroux wildly.

Yeah, that's TK. Fuck. Sid groans and drops his head into his hands. The goal whistle blows a few seconds later, and Giroux's whoops are drowned out by the shouts of enthusiastic Bedford parents.

Sid can lose gracefully. He can totally lose gracefully.

He leaves his head in his hands for a few more seconds, staring mournfully at the chipped wood of the boards. When he feels he can muster at least a farce of a smile, he sighs, raises his head, digs around in his pocket for his wallet and extracts a bill.

"Good game," he says, through painfully gritted teeth, slapping a tenner into Giroux's palm with probably more force than is necessary.

Giroux takes it, looking like he's trying very hard not to laugh. Their fingers brush, and now Sid's not sure whether the churning in his stomach is frustration or butterflies or some godforsaken mix of the two.

"It was a good game," Giroux agrees amusedly.

Sid nods jerkily. "TK played well," he grits out.

Giroux leans against the boards, grinning loose and broad, unbearably smug. "Taylor did as well. That was twenty-eight saves I counted."

Sid hums an agreement, mollified despite himself. "She'll be pleased with that."

There's a silence, and the last of the anger drains away because Sid had forgotten that the end of the game meant the end of the season. It feels silly, but Sid's going to miss this, miss it a lot. Sid swallows and gropes for something to say. "Well, good to see you," he tries. "I better— I better—"

Giroux cuts him off, looking weirdly pained. "Hey, get dinner with me sometime."

"What?" Sid asks stupidly because there's no way he heard that right.

Giroux visibly restrains himself from rolling his eyes. "I can't believe I'm asking either," he says. "But this has been fun, and Teeks likes you so—"

"Yeah," interrupts Sid, the words tripping over his tongue. "That'd be— that'd be nice."

The smile he gets from Giroux is softer than usual, somewhere between fond and exasperated. Sid grins back, too happy to do anything else.

Then Giroux jerks forward as TK runs headlong into the back of his legs.

"Papa, papa," he's yelling, breathless with excitement. "Did you see that?"

Giroux leverages himself back upright and begins detaching TK from his waist. "'Course I did," he says proudly. "What a shot! Straight between the pipes."

That's Sid's cue to go find Taylor. "That was a good game, TK," he says as gathers his coat and moves to head off.

"Thanks!" grins TK, and Giroux raised a hand goodbye.

Sid smiles and shoulders him gently on the way past.

He smiles all the way home, too.

* * *

"Budge over," grumbles Claude, yanking at the blankets.

"We gotta make up a better story for how we met," says Sid sleepily.

Claude shoves him over with a shoulder then pulls the blankets back up over both of them. "What?"

"Hmm, you're warm," Sid mumbles. He slings an arm around Claude's chest and presses closer. "When my mom asks. I'm not telling her that you tried to beat me up."

Claude shakes his head. "I didn't try," he mutters. "I won that fight."

"You did not."

"I did."

"You didn— mm."

**Author's Note:**

> cw: one incident of physical violence between over-competitive adults. they are not in a relationship at the time and no one is harmed. one incident of worrying about leaving children with a sort-of-unknown adult.
> 
> comments are adored, here or on [tumblr](https://sequestering.tumblr.com/).


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